Storytelling vs Story Showing
I love storytelling. The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service is one of my favorite poems. I have it committed to memory and it’s over 5-minutes long! I don’t think any movie version of this poem could, in any way, capture what I have going on in my imagination when I read it.
After I viewed Star Wars for the first time, I said to my good friend, William Bryan, (“Stay Puff” Marshmallow Man, Ghostbusters), “It’s better than you can ever imagine.” To that, he said, “Well I can imagine pretty good.”
That’s what I’m driving at here – with technology as a paintbrush, out the door goes “not showing it.” I’m just saying, careful we don’t show everything just because we can. Using the audiences’ imagination is a powerful filmmaking tool that’s becoming an endangered species.
In American Werewolf in London, when Jack & David didn’t steer clear of the Moors, it was not seeing the terror that really got to me. Through the fog and the dark, the growls bouncing off the rolling hills, growing closer and closer, coming in from all sides. David says, “It’s moving. It’s circling us.” Jack’s like, “Ah, fuck.” – this scared the shit out of me. And there was nothing but their fear and the fog to really see. Nonetheless, aside from all the amazing practical effects in that movie, it’s funny that that was the moment that really stuck with me the most.
In “CornStalkers,” I pay homage to unseen terror as well. The setting: Night, in the center of the corn maze. Our heroes have just come face to face with the Tarantula entity scarecrow. Her makeshift body is in a half-twist. Legs and wrists lashed with ropes to a large, wooden cross. Burlap skin and black slit-bars for a mouth. Razor-sharp, grizzly claws, fashioned to old canvas work-gloves.
As troubling as she looks, it’s more terrifying when they hear a large horsepower engine begin revving somewhere in the cornfield that is unseen. The monster engine drops into gear. The sound of it shifting into second gear and moving towards them! They all begin to panic as real terror sets in. It’s getting much louder now – closer! Oncoming headlamps are now clearly visible through the cornstalks! – – I won’t spoil any more here, but suffice it to say, with all that we do see and experience in this film, these unseen terrifying moments are some of my very favorites.